Damo's 1965 S-Type

[dmulally]

Mice got in and stinks like piss. Time to clean and dry. Disgusting. 

[Goat]

This is rad. Love that you stuck with a Jag donk. Even though you've got to pay the cost to be the boss. hah. Amazing you found that bellhousing!

I'd be keen on your old gearbox if you are going to sell it

[dmulally]

6 hours ago, Goat said:

This is rad. Love that you stuck with a Jag donk. Even though you've got to pay the cost to be the boss. hah. Amazing you found that bellhousing!

I'd be keen on your old gearbox if you are going to sell it

Yeah no worries. I'll probably keep the engine for art on a stand. The early XK's are a great looking engine. 

 

[rich1179]

On 16/07/2026 at 19:18, dmulally said:

In other news I scored this bellhousing and a flywheel. That should make adapting any new gearbox a little easier depending on input shaft length. 

Where the heck did you find that bell housing haha. Was hunting one down for the last few years.

Was going to say aj6 are probably quite easy swap as the jap ecu don't have any security on them and they are basic as can get. Even the aj16 ecu can be had security free from a jap spec car.

 

Looked into all of these for my s2 xj6. Ended up getting a flywheel from the uk.

[dmulally]

3 hours ago, rich1179 said:

Where the heck did you find that bell housing haha. Was hunting one down for the last few years.

Was going to say aj6 are probably quite easy swap as the jap ecu don't have any security on them and they are basic as can get. Even the aj16 ecu can be had security free from a jap spec car.

 

Looked into all of these for my s2 xj6. Ended up getting a flywheel from the uk.

My winning personality and a rare non offensive cash offer scored them. I believe the seller had a couple of gearboxes but with flywheels probably outlasting most of us here and bellhousings able to be separated from the actual gearbag, he was cool. 

Leaning towards an R154 presently. Chatted to a guy online who raced an XJS and lunched three w58 gearboxes under load in third. 

[rich1179]

4 hours ago, dmulally said:

My winning personality and a rare non offensive cash offer scored them. I believe the seller had a couple of gearboxes but with flywheels probably outlasting most of us here and bellhousings able to be separated from the actual gearbag, he was cool. 

Leaning towards an R154 presently. Chatted to a guy online who raced an XJS and lunched three w58 gearboxes under load in third. 

Haha that will do it. I'm probably going to modify the one from the 4hp22 automatic to fit a Toyota box in mine tbh. Did a similar adapter job from a Discovery v8 automatic bell housing to a t5. Did you decide about ecu/ running the engine or still looking at going carbs?

[Thousand Dollar Supercar]

13 minutes ago, rich1179 said:

 I'm probably going to modify the one from the 4hp22 automatic to fit a Toyota box in mine tbh. Did a similar adapter job from a Discovery v8 automatic bell housing to a t5.

I have a 4HP22 automatic. I did not know this was remotely feasible. I'm thinking it wouldn't make a manual conversion without a donor car much easier though.

9 hours ago, rich1179 said:

Was going to say aj6 are probably quite easy swap as the jap ecu don't have any security on them and they are basic as can get. Even the aj16 ecu can be had security free from a jap spec car.

I grabbed an ECU from a 3.6 XJ40, and it worked in my XJ-S. I doubt that the XJ40 just happened to be a Japanese import.

I've seen stuff online about hotting up a 3.6 AJ6:

• People use an 'Andy bracket' to reposition the crank angle sensor for more ignition advance on the stock ECU.
• You can fit the larger airflow meter and throttle body from a 4.0 car. A resistor is inserted so the stock ECU sees the same reading from the 4.0 AFM as it got from the 3.6 AFM, though the value of this resistor is proprietary information.
• They make extractors for the AJ6 overseas, but they'd be very expensive by the time they landed here.

[dmulally]

12 hours ago, rich1179 said:

Haha that will do it. I'm probably going to modify the one from the 4hp22 automatic to fit a Toyota box in mine tbh. Did a similar adapter job from a Discovery v8 automatic bell housing to a t5. Did you decide about ecu/ running the engine or still looking at going carbs?

I think the adapter route youre doing should work fine as a torque converter is pretty chunky so you'll have space. About all Ill save with the manual bellhousing is possibly time on slave/fork faffing about. 

I'll just use the stock ECU and try and get it running. I do know where there is a manual ECU but allegedly it is one byte difference and it's on the automatic off throttle over run. I don't care enough to worry about that but if I did, I'd probably send one to AJ6 engineering to have reflashed or whatever they do. 

I really enjoyed my old XJS 4.0 so I cant imagine wanting to try and hot it up but a blower and a custom ECU (Link?) would be the way to go. But I'm years off that yet. 

I may end up making extractors but rather than for HP gains it'll be steering column clearance related. 

I nearly bought this for $500 which had everything but the gearbox but was too hard to get it home. Would have pinched the manual ECU, mounts and exhaust then put the engine on the parts rack. 

[Bearded Baldy]

Where was it? I just spotted a no wof 1999 xjs on the tard....

[dmulally]

23 minutes ago, Bearded Baldy said:

Where was it? I just spotted a no wof 1999 xjs on the tard....

In Auckland. I have to head up north to get that engine in the next month so could have dragged the car trailer but cbf'd filling the shed with more shit. 

All guns will be pointing at finding a gearbag now.

[Bearded Baldy]

Fair enough. Was gonna say if you needed it stored i have grass behind the shed that could use a frostcover lol

[dmulally]

@Valiant doing some searching I found you asking the hard questions about a manual swap years ago. 

Whatever happened to that adventure?

[Valiant]

5 hours ago, dmulally said:

@Valiant doing some searching I found you asking the hard questions about a manual swap years ago. 

Whatever happened to that adventure?

I decided I couldn't be bothered, sold the gearbox, bellhousing, and car.

I always liked my VG better so I kept that.

 

[JustHarry]

On 21/07/2026 at 16:25, dmulally said:

 

Leaning towards an R154 presently. Chatted to a guy online who raced an XJS and lunched three w58 gearboxes under load in third. 

An r154 is a pretty big gearbox

 

You won't break a w58 with a aj6  in a road car 

You'd be pretty safe putting 350hp through one before it has issues 

[dmulally]

1 hour ago, JustHarry said:

An r154 is a pretty big gearbox

 

You won't break a w58 with a aj6  in a road car 

You'd be pretty safe putting 350hp through one before it has issues 

What about the T5's? I say that because there seem to be a billion of them and they all come with yokes, clutch, tailshafts due to everybody having dreams of converting their VP commy and then realising it's a VP commy. 

[JustHarry]

22 minutes ago, dmulally said:

What about the T5's? I say that because there seem to be a billion of them and they all come with yokes, clutch, tailshafts due to everybody having dreams of converting their VP commy and then realising it's a VP commy. 

Aren't t5s like a $2.5k gearbox?

[JustHarry]

/I've never bought one so I don't actually know

 

 

 

*results may vary 

[igor]

My wof guy tried for years to buy my manual coon to strip the gearbox out of it for a spare for his racecar. Reckoned they're getting hard to find.

[Raizer]

SsangYong Mussos used the T5 in RWD utes too, can be had for around a grand if you look around.

No idea if they changed the spines or anything for SsangYong use though.

[dmulally]

7 hours ago, Raizer said:

SsangYong Mussos used the T5 in RWD utes too, can be had for around a grand if you look around.

No idea if they changed the spines or anything for SsangYong use though.

@chrisR has the entire NZ market cornered on Musso's sadly. 

T5's seem out there. A bit of a pain to google though as like with most things online it is a race to the bottom with second hand sharns about everything being the worst because a mate of a mate had one etc...

 

So availability should be fine and size wise isnt too bad. 

Problems I see are shifter location being too far aft and being a commodore will likely have an electronic speedo which isnt impossible but does complicate things.